Triphleba

To continue our project on European Triphleba-species, James Bonet (Sweden) and I visited Dr. Henry Disney in Cambridge. From Monday to Friday we worked together with the specialist on different Triphleba species.

The main work was to get sure about our determinations. In some cases we were not quite sure so we tried to compare our species with the species in the big collection of the Natural Museum in Cambridge.

There were some problematic species we discussed with Dr. Disney. In 4Triphleba species we arrived at the decision that they are new to science!!

A further problem in science is the differentiation of Triphleba aptina SCHINER, 1853and Triphleba antricola SCHMITZ, 1919. SCHMITZ in "Die Fliegen der palaearktischen Region" distinguishes the two species only in the females. The vein 3 in females of T. antricola is thickened, in T. aptina it is normal. In Schmitz males are distinguishesed on the bristle on front tibia. In M. antricola there is a bristle dorsal in the middel of the tibia developed. This bristle is missing in T. aptina. This character is a very bad one, because the species is very variable. There seems to be no clear difference in the hypopyg. So it has to be checked if these two species are valid, or if one of them is a variation of the other one.